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Monday, 17 February 2014

Honeymoon Cowl

Pin ItOnce the announcement of our engagement had settled and the wedding venue viewed and booked, our thoughts naturally turned to our honeymoon. I have been married before but circumstances were such that I didn't get to have a honeymoon so this is my first one and I can't begin to tell you how excited I am. We have decided on the south island of New Zealand (but first, 3 days in Sydney in 5 star luxury) and I was a little surprised to discover that the temperature whilst we are in New Zealand can sometimes be as low as 10C during the day. Whilst this is certainly very different for us, it is fabulous news because, finally, I can knit warm scarves, hats and gloves for myself. I usually make them for others as they head off on their travels. Whilst we won't be leaving for approximately 10 months, it's never too early to start knitting and I thought I would continue my newly discovered love of double knitting.I found a chart that I loved but wanted to modify to fit the size of my cowl and after an hour or so graphing it, came up with the end result that was exactly what I was looking for.

Pattern

The double knit cowl is knitted in the round using an invisible cast on and a kitchener stitch bind off. This gives a very neat finish.

It took me a couple of attempts to get the hang of the invisible cast on. It's well worth the effort to learn this method though as the results really are much better than a normal cast on. A link is available here should you wish to learn this method. I cast on the number of stitches that I needed and then joined in the rounds in the normal way.

Materials

I used yarn from my stash for this pattern and it worked out to be approximately 50g of 8ply (Worsted weight) yarn for each colour. I used 'Silver' and 'Slate'. Both of these are from the luxury range at Bendigo Woollen Mills.

1 circular needle 4.00mm (60cm length)

1 x tapestry/wool needle for kitchener stitch bind off

1 x yarn separator or knitting thimble (if you use one for fairisle and double knitting)

2 x stitch markers.2 x DPN's size 4

Instructions

Using the invisible cast on, cast on 128 stitches of each colour. This is 2 repeats of the chart. Set up the first row by identifying the stitch that is to be knit (you can tell by examining the construction of the stitch) and knitting the first row in the standard double knit method.

Honeymoon Cowl Pattern

Join the round, place stitch marker to indicate the beginning of the row, and commence the chart. Once you have completed the first 64 stitches of the pattern, place the second stitch marker. This allows you to easily recognise when you are coming to the end of a pattern repeat.

Once you have completed the pattern, it is time to bind off. Using 2 DPN's size 4.00mm, separate the knit and purl stitches so that all the knit stitches are at the front and all the purl stitches are at the back. I found it easier to only work about 25 stitches at a time. Those of you who are familiar with knitting socks will recognise what comes next - an intense period of kitchener stitch. Completing the cowl with kitchener stitch ensures that the cast on and bind off are the same, creating uniformity.

Separating the knit stitches
from the purl in
readiness for kitchener stitch.

Take the time to block the cowl. This ensures the best possible finish.Hopefully, this will help to keep me warm during the cold days in New Zealand when we are on a glacier, or a Gondola or a cruise on Milford Sound.

3 comments:

I am excited to knit this with some peruvian yarn my daughter brought home from her Machu Pichu trip and gave me for Christmas. My question is which cast on method from the link in the pattern would your recommend? 1:20? 4:29?